What is the Centre for Creativity and Innovation?

The Centre for Creativity and Innovation (within the BSU College of Business and Economics) sparks “aha moments” for people and organizations by being a catalyst for creative collaboration in the Treasure Valley.

We work with thought leaders of learning organizations who want to achieve high performance and use creativity to produce results.  These thought leaders reject complacency and strive to out think, out innovate, and out perform their peers and competitors.

Our goal is to help the region become known as one where individuals, organizations and communities do things differently and improve continually.

You spark “Aha Moments?”  Cool.  But how do you do that?

We’re always looking for new ways to help people and organizations generate “aha moments” in pursuit of high performance.  And we know that “aha moments” occur when creative ideas collide.  So we try to generate creativity in unexpected ways by encouraging collaboration across (what might appear to be) wildly diverse organizations and people.

Through The Gang and The Posse, The Creative Edge Speaker Series, The Unstructured Problem-Solving Projects and Aha Moments for Learning Talks, we offer a variety of activities to help spark “aha moments.”

Whoa, slow down.  You said “The Gang?”  What’s that all about?

The Gang is a group of eight high-performing, highly creative Boise-based organizations.  Their high performance is demonstrated and measured objectively, in ways like rankings, growth, awards, or reviews that show them to be leaders among their peers.   Their creativity comes from others in their fields acknowledging that indeed they ARE creative and innovative.

The Gang includes for profit and not-for-profit organizations from business to the arts, government to education and sports.  These relentlessly creative, learning organizations include:

• The Ada County Sheriff’s Office
• The Boise State University Football Program
• Drake Cooper
• Healthwise
• The Idaho Shakespeare Festival
• Microsoft
• Trey McIntyre Project
• WhiteCloud Analytics

The Gang holds an annual meeting, where the leaders bring key members of their organizations to talk about topics like innovation, culture and leadership, and “aha moments” from the previous year.  In addition, some Gang members meet bi-monthly to discuss a “messy problem” and get input from other members.

Interesting idea and mix of folks.  How do I join The Gang?

Sorry, this Gang is closed – as long as the members remain high performing and highly creative!  But we have had so much interest in The Gang, that we’ve started a Posse. This is a pilot program to determine if we can create a template for future groups of high performing, highly creative organizations like The Gang.  If it works, we hope to create more Posses in the future.

The members of the first Posse have several key characteristics in common:

1. They are relentlessly curious.
2. They are aggressive in seeking opportunities to learn, grow and enhance their own and their organizations’ performance.
3. They anticipate and adapt to changes around them, sometimes long before others see them coming.
4. They are giving back to the community and are likely to be the community leaders of the future.

The Posse meets monthly and has a skilled facilitator to help the group learn and tackle “messy problems” that each member faces.

If the first Posse succeeds, we’ll open others in the future.  Stay tuned.

Sounds interesting.  How do I find a Posse or Gang in my area?

We’ve asked The Gang leaders if they know of anything similar to The Gang in their own fields, and we’ve asked academic colleagues around the world if they know of any groups like The Gang.  So far, alas, we’ve discovered none.  That means Gangs and Posses may not exist in your area.

But what an opportunity for the Treasure Valley to become known as the place where the very best kind of gangs started and continue to flourish!

Maybe you should consider being part of a future Posse?

What about all of those other things you mentioned?  Is there another way to get involved where I can exchanges ideas, learn how to tackle tough problems, and spark “aha moments?”

That leads us to other activities hosted or co-hosted by The Centre and described below.

• The Creative Edge Speaker Series brings in speakers and workshop leaders who are known worldwide for their expertise and ability to spark “aha moments.”  In September 2010, Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin, conducted an all-day workshop for sponsoring companies.  We anticipate having two speakers a year with a short session over breakfast open to the public and a full-day session open to individuals and business sponsors.

• The Design Thinking Workshop in the spring of each year will provide a one-day opportunity to learn about design thinking, a powerful approach for tackling unstructured messy problems.

• The Design Thinking Problem Project offers firms a way to apply creative problem solving approaches, especially design thinking, to firms facing unstructured problems.  A team including executives from the firm, a trained Boise State University faculty member, and student assistant will work from August-December with a facilitator to learn and apply design thinking to the problem.

• Aha Learning Moments are talks and workshops given by the Centre’s faculty and affiliate members for specific groups.  A few of the groups to whom we have spoken include:
  • NASA  – Launch Services Program
  • Rotary Clubs
  • Idaho Charter Schools
  • The Boise Young Professionals
  • The Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce
  • The Young Presidents’ Organization
  • Stoel Rives Law firm
  • Boise State Public Radio (NPR affiliate) members

We can cover a range of topics that focus on the why, what and how of creativity and aha moments for organizations.

Sounds great.  How can I find out more?

Check out our overview of the Centre and what we do.   Then give a call (208.426.4257), write us (create@boisestate.edu), or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

We’ll find some ways to help you spark your own aha moments and creative collaboration.

• Collaborate
  We can give you tips on how to identify some like minded, aggressive learners who are OUTSIDE of your field, work with a facilitator to form new Posses, and get you on the road to helping create high-performing, highly creative organizations.
• Learn
  Attend a workshop, network, and learn about creativity and innovation and how they link to performance.
• Research
  Nancy Napier, author of two books and many articles about organizational creativity (The Creative Discipline and Insight: Encouraging Aha Moments for Organizational Success). She can always use good help conducting research relating to projects, future books, or her radio feature on Boise State Public Radio, Idaho Business Matters (http://platform.publicbroadcasting.net/idaho/IdBusMattAudio.html).
• Train
  Perhaps you want to get involved in helping others learn about creativity and innovation.  We can help you learn to do that.  Perhaps you could shadow one of our trainers, do some small projects, and obtain more experience in the process?